Halliburton to hire 1,500 for work in San Antonio area

By VICKI VAUGHAN, STAFF WRITER |
November 17, 2011

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Oil field services giant Halliburton Co. began work Thursday on $50 million base of operations in San Antonio for which it will hire 1,500 workers to support its operations in the Eagle Ford shale.

Houston-based Halliburton began construction on a 400,000-square-foot structure in south San Antonio that will house its employees, who will earn annual salaries averaging $70,000.

Halliburton officials said they hope to fill 75 percent, or more than 1,100 positions, by hiring locally.

"This is the biggest thing that's happened in San Antonio since Toyota," Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff said. "We talk about how we want to grow our tech industry and our bioscience, which is all important. But let's not forget - these are better-paying jobs."

Halliburton first indicated to local leaders in late August their interest in opening a facility in San Antonio. The company broke ground Thursday and is expected to complete the structure in early 2013.

About 25 percent of the positions at the new facility will be transferred to San Antonio from Halliburton operations elsewhere, Halliburton spokeswoman Marisol Espinosa said.

"We're looking for a wide range of professions," Espinosa said. "We're going to be here for a while."

The company will hire administrators, managers, technicians, engineers, chemists, geologists and truck drivers. Its San Antonio building will include administrative offices, a laboratory and service bays for trucks.

Halliburton will encourage military veterans to apply.

"Their leadership skill set and what they've learned are transferable to what we do," Espinosa said.

When the company held a military veterans' job fair in Houston, "we found a lot of eligible candidates in that work pool," she said.

Wolff said Halliburton's presence should aid the region's economy as a whole and boost demand for higher-end housing.

"I think it's going to help with housing," Wolff said. "We've already seeing interest in the higher-priced housing market," he said, as other companies establish a presence in San Antonio to support Eagle Ford shale operations.

Houston-based Baker Hughes has said it plans to build a $30 million operations center and administrative headquarters in southeastern Bexar County to support drilling in the Eagle Ford shale. The company said its facility will employ 400.

Switzerland-based Weatherford International has said it will build a facility to house and service its hydraulic fracturing equipment on the northwest quadrant of Loop 1604 and I-37, company officials have said.

And Schlumberger, the world's largest oil-field services company with offices in Houston, Paris and The Hague, Netherlands, has told local economic development officials that it wishes to establish a site in southern Bexar County.